Heart health experts share tips on how to synchronise the circadian rhythm in order to boost health and wellbeing.
Heart health experts are raising the alarm about how disruptions to the body’s internal clock could harm our wellbeing.
The circadian rhythm, known as the body’s 24-hour internal clock, helps to regulate our sleep cycles, hormones, digestion, and body temperature.
Disruptions to the body clock – whether due to irregular sleep or eating habits, jet lag, shift work, or light exposure at night – have been linked to a slew of health issues, including a higher risk of obesity, heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and high blood pressure.
It’s thought that these disruptions impede metabolic regulation, blood pressure control, and hormonal balance – though more research is needed to prove causation, according to a new scientific statement from the American Heart Association (AHA).
“Regular interruptions to the body clock are much more than simple inconveniences like staying up too late or waking up too early,” Kristen Knutson, an associate professor of neurology who specialises in sleep health at Northwestern University in the United States, said in a statement.
“Aligning our daily behaviours, when we sleep, eat and move, with our internal clock is important to support optimal cardiometabolic health,” she added.
Here are five ways that heart health experts recommend synchronising your body’s internal clock for optimal health.
1. Get light in the morning and avoid it at night
Light is the brain’s primary environmental cue for regulating the circadian rhythm.
Experts mostly recommend full daylight levels of natural light in the morning to boost mood and energy levels. On the flip side, even low levels of light at night – including blue light from screens – can suppress the body’s production of melatonin, a hormone that regulates the sleep-wake cycle.
2. Go to bed and wake up at the same time every day
Getting enough sleep is critical for heart and brain health – but our sleep habits also play a role. Irregular sleep schedules can disrupt the circadian rhythm and have been linked to obesity and type 2 diabetes, the AHA said.
Maintaining a regular sleep schedule, even on the weekends, can help keep the body clock on track.
3. Eat early in the day
Eating at irregular intervals or late at night can alter the circadian rhythms in organs such as the liver and pancreas, the AHA said. That raises the risk of blood sugar fluctuation as well as weight gain.
Research indicates that earlier meal times, for example, having breakfast before 8 a.m., is tied to better cardiometabolic health and a lower risk of type 2 diabetes.
However, the experts said more studies are needed to determine exactly when people should eat in order to improve their sleep and cardiometabolic health.
4. Time your workouts
The timing of when people work out could influence their blood pressure and blood sugar control, though the evidence is fairly limited.
However, the experts argued that physical activity may have knock-on effects on sleep quality, which affects the body clock.
Deciding the best time to work out also depends on your individual needs. Some research suggests that morning or afternoon workouts speed up the circadian rhythm, while exercising in the evening can delay it.
5. Keep the body clock in mind
Knutson said the circadian rhythm is often overlooked in medical care, despite the “important role” it plays in keeping people healthy.
It’s difficult to accurately measure the body clock, but the experts said wearable devices such as smart watches and rings can help by tracking patterns in heart rate and skin temperature.
“Everyone has an internal clock, and it’s time we start listening to it,” Knutson said.